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Improving public services through open government

22 May 2017

As citizens, we rely on public services being accessible and high quality – to give us an education, keep us healthy, make our communities a safe place to be, and ensure our basic needs are met. Public services are critical to our wellbeing and life chances, and building stronger and more prosperous societies. Open government reforms have the potential to improve existing services, and unlock the ideas, knowledge and capacity for new solutions to societal challenges. The idea is simple – public services that are more responsive and accountable to us as citizens – and benefit from our insights, ideas, energy and scrutiny – will work better for us.

This is why, in partnership with the Open Government Partnership, we have written a new guidance paper on how to develop robust and ambitious open public service reforms. The guidance is particularly targeted at governments and civil society developing open governments commitments through the Open Government Partnership, but should be useful to anyone interested in how transparency, citizen participation and accountability can improve public services.

The paper sets out a framework of open public service reforms, as well as guidance, recommendations, resources and case studies. We will be updating the guide over time, so please do get in touch to let us know what you think.